For as long as kids have been scared of the monster hiding under the bed or deviously waiting in the closet for nighttime, parents have been trying to banish it.

You may have first tried to reason with them. “There is no such thing as monsters, honey” is about as effective as saying, “Oh well, best of luck to you, hope you’re still alive in the morning!”

Maybe you’ve tried to make your own homemade “monster spray” to preemptively de-monster the dark spaces before bedtime. Maybe you’ve even tried to have your kid “dress up” his monster in a silly way to diffuse his fears.

I don’t know how to make you feel better, but I told my kid that little kid farts are monster poison. And that she farts when she’s sleeping all the time, so she should just go to sleep and fart and she’ll be super safe. We even acted it out by her pretending to fart on a scary monster (me) and the monster passing out from fart exposure. I couldn’t believe it but it worked. We even talked about how monsters and monster fart poison are both totally made up... but I think having a made up antidote helped her have some power over the idea of monsters.